Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and Wikis both allow people to self publish information on the Internet. The content is created by amateurs or everyday people.

Wikis are basically web hosted, collaborative encyclopedias or manuals. People collectively add and edit content and it is continually revised and fact-checked.Each topic in the wiki is connected by hyperlinks so the flow of information is nonlinear. Information on wikis tend to be more objective and factual which is why they are often used  in business. In the article How To Use Wikis For Business, wikis are can be used to “need a central location where shared documents can be viewed and revised by a large and/or dispersed team.”

Blogs can have several contributors but each post is usually created by one person and appear on the web page in chronological order and posts get old and lose relevance over time.Blogs are like the editorial portions of newspapers where people write their opinions.Blogs contribute to public thought like Blogs can be used for collaboration because their is a two way response between the author and audience. The audience has the ability to give feedback and comments to the author.In the article Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid the feedback in the comments in a blog created the opportunity to end criminal activity in a neighborhood.  “and blogging turned to action, as neighbors started filing complaints with the 68th Precinct station… ‘ “At the end of the day, it was about putting aside anonymity, putting aside the HTML and physically showing up.”’”

Convergence is important in the networked world because it’s several ways of  communication and media combined into one.